


and here they lie in silence

by bethejerktomybitch



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: 5+1 Things, Aftermath of Maeve's death, Angst, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hallucinations, Schizophrenia (implied), Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2017-04-19
Packaged: 2018-10-20 23:26:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10672962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bethejerktomybitch/pseuds/bethejerktomybitch
Summary: Five times Spencer calls Maeve, one time she calls him, and the one time there are no calls needed.





	and here they lie in silence

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this piece after I rewatched Maeve's death, and it turned out very different from what I'd planned. I hope you still like it though and leave some comments.  
> Warning: contains a pretty unambigous description of suicide, so if that is trigger for you, I'd advise you not to read it.

The first time Spencer calls Maeve, she’s been dead for two hours and thirty-six minutes.

 

He holds his breath as he dials the number he was never allowed to call while she was still alive, and then there it is – her voice, clear and loud as if she was standing right next to him.

 

_“You’ve reached Dr. Maeve Donovan. I’m unavailable at the moment, but leave your name and number and I will call you back.”_

The phone slips from his trembling finger and clatters to the ground, the screen shattering into a dozen pieces. A sound that resembles the cry of a wounded animal forces its way out of his mouth and Spencer wraps his own arms around himself in a pointless effort to make the emptiness inside of him go away.

 

She will not call him back. He will never talk to he again, and this – those two sentences – are all he has left of her.

 

Spencer screams. He shouts and cries and tramples the phone that is already irreparably broken, because that _useless_ thing isn’t doing what it’s supposed to do, it isn’t doing its _one goddamned job,_ it isn’t letting him talk to Maeve while that is the only thing he wants right now.

 

Ironically, it’s simultaneously the only thing he will never be able to again. He will never hear her say anything else than those two sentences.

 

* * *

 

 

The second time Spencer calls Maeve, she’s been dead for five weeks, three days, seven hours and eleven minutes.

 

He’s been trying so hard not to – because he thought of Johnny McHale who used to call his dead fiancée’s mailbox all the time and what it did to him – but this case is more than he can take and he just can’t help himself.

 

The keys of the phone he bought two days after he trashed his last one blur in front of his eyes as tears start to fill his eyes. He can’t breathe, can’t move, can’t think of anything but the six little girls who were brutally raped and murdered and how they looked when they found them, their eyes filled with terror and their little bodies broken and battered, but then there’s her voice and it cuts through the horror and guilt and agony.

 

_“You’ve reached Dr. Maeve Donovan. I’m unavailable at the moment, but leave your name and number and I will call you back.”_

The beep is unnaturally loud in his ears and for a moment, Spencer feels like he is going to say something – the words are right there, at the tip of his tongue – but he ends the call before he has a chance to.

 

He clenches his fist around the phone. Maeve’s voice is there, echoing through his head and leaving no room for the horrifying thought and images, and he takes a deep breath.

 

 _I can do it,_ he thinks, and then he whispers the words into the silence of his room until he almost believes them.

 

* * *

 

 

The third time Spencer calls Maeve, she’s been dead for five weeks, six days, two hours and twenty-eight minutes.

 

They’ve caught the man who killed all those little girls – it was Spencer who had the crucial idea, even though a part of him thinks that it was Maeve who whispered it to him in a dream or maybe while he was awake; lately, he sometimes can’t tell the difference – and he feels like he should tell her about their success.

 

He dials her number in the loneliness of his hotel room and as soon as he hears her voice, it doesn’t feel lonely at all. She fills the room with only those two sentences, releases the tension from his body without ever touching him and steadies his ragged breathing.

 

_“You’ve reached Dr. Maeve Donovan. I’m unavailable at the moment, but leave your name and number and I will call you back.”_

 

“I did it, Maeve.” he whispers as soon as he hears the beep. “You were right. I could do it.”

For a moment, he imagines he hears her intake of breath on the other side of the line, just as if she’s about to say something, but of course, she isn’t.

 

She doesn’t say anything but somehow, he still feels like she is right there on the phone, just like she used to be.

 

* * *

 

 

The fourth time Spencer calls Maeve, she’s been dead for nine weeks, one day, twenty hours and nineteen minutes.

 

He’s lying in a hospital bed with a bullet wound right below his ribcage. The unsub who shot him hasn’t been caught yet and the unsteady beeping of his heart right next to him does little to calm him. Invisible hands are grabbing at him from the shadows, tugging at his clothes and tearing into his skin, and there are countless voices whispering – no, screaming - at him in languages he does not understand.

 

His phone is in his hand before he’s even made a conscious decision and his fingers find the right keys as if they’ve had years of practice. He presses the phone to his ear and waits anxiously for her voice – _come on come on I can’t breathe –_ and then there it is and it tears apart all the demons and shadows and memories haunting him.

 

_“You’ve reached Dr. Maeve Donovan. I’m unavailable at the moment, but leave your name and number and I will call you back.”_

 

“I’m scared, Maeve.” he whispers. “This unsub is still out there, and he’s shot me and Morgan is hurt as well and I don’t know what to do, Maeve. I just don’t know what to do.”

 

_“It will be alright.”_

He flinches so violently his phone falls to the ground with a loud bang. His heart is racing in his chest, in time with the beeping next to his bed, and when he’s finally calmed down enough, it takes him a good five minutes to pick up is phone, because the bullet wound in his side sends a burning pain through his body every time he moves.

 

When he calls her again with trembling fingers, there are only those usual two sentences, as it should be.

 

He blames the hallucination on the morphine and refuses to even consider that he might be becoming like his mother, that talking to a dead woman might just be the final straw.

 

* * *

 

 

The fifth time Spencer calls Maeve, he isn’t sure whether she’s even really dead.

 

He’s just been released from the hospital, and her face looks at him from every mirror and every windowpane. Every sound turns into her voice and the rational part of his brain know that this not the morphine – this is something else entirely, something big and terrifying and dangerous.

 

His fingers fly across the keys as soon as he’s convinced Hotch he can leave him alone in his apartment and he clenches his fist around the phone so tight he’s almost afraid it might crack until her hears her voice and all the tension disappears from his body.

 

_“You’ve reached Dr. Maeve Donovan. I’m unavailable at the moment, but leave your name and number and I will call you back.”_

 

“Maeve?” he asks hesitatingly, his voice barely more than a whisper.

 

There are a few seconds of agonizing silence and then there it is, his name pronounced in the particular way he used to love so much. _“Spencer.”_

“Oh god, Maeve.” he manages to say before he breaks down crying. He whispers her name again and again until he can taste it like blood in his mouth, and she says his until her voice is the only thing binding him to reality.

 

“I missed you so much.” he finally whispers, and her smile is audible in her voice as she answers: _“I missed you too, Spencer. “_

 

* * *

 

 

The first time Maeve calls Spencer, the ringing of his phone wakes him up and he has it pressed to his ear before his brain is even fully awake.

 

“Maeve.” he says, his voice full of desperate hope.

 

There are no two sentences this time, no recording taunting him and reminding him that this isn’t real, that he shouldn’t even be talking to her. There is just her voice, sweet like honey as she says: _“I want to see you, Spencer. Come visit me.”_

 

He nods in a trance and even though she can’t possibly see him, she gives a content hum and says: _“I’ll be waiting for you. Don’t be late.”_

 

Then there’s a click and the line goes dead and Spencer is on his feet in the blink of an eye.

 

* * *

 

 

The one time there are no calls needed, he is standing in front of her grave and she is there, just a few feet away from him, covering the headstone that has her name and her dates of birth and death on it.

 

 _“You came.”_ she says, the ghost of a smile on her face, and he nods.

 

“Of course I came.” he says and steps a little closer to her. “I would cross the universe if it meant I could see you again.”

 

She gives a sad smile but her eyes are full of love as she replies: _“You know that there is only one way we can truly be together.”_ Her gaze flickers down to his hip – where, for some inexplicable reasons, he tucked his gun into his waistband before leaving the house – and a single tear rolls down her cheek as she sees realization hit him.

 

 _“I wish it could be different.”_ she whispers. _“I really do. But you know as well as I do that there is no other way.”_

 

Slowly, very slowly, Spencer reaches for his gun. It is cold and heavy in his hand, but it doesn’t seem all that dreadful to him. He knows that she is right. The world without her voice, her face, her laugh is a grey one and once he got a glance at the world in color, his fate was sealed.

 

“Does it hurt?” he asks, his voice very small and childlike.

 

She smiles brightly and her eyes are like two shining suns in the darkness of the cemetery. _“Not at all.”_ she says. _“I promise.”_

 

Spencer raises the gun and puts it to his temple, eyes never leaving hers. _“I’ll wait for you on the other side.”_ she whispers, and he smiles.

 

“I love you.” he breathes out, and then he pulls the trigger.

 

* * *

 

 

When Spencer Reid is buried, Maeve has been dead for twelve weeks, five days, six hours and forty-nine minutes.

 

His casket is lowered into the earth to no sounds but the stifled crying of his team – who were the only real friends he had – and inside, his lips are slightly opened, words he’ll never say now still lingering on them. His grave is right next to Maeve’s and they are sure he would’ve liked that, but that doesn’t make anything better, because Spencer is dead, their friend is gone, and they’ll never hear his voice again.

 

The air is thick with unsaid words, but there they lie in silence.


End file.
